Mark Sanford to announce run for Congress Wednesday

Jenny Sanford, the ex-wife of former South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford, comments on his reported run for Congress.

By NBC's Domenico Montanaro

Updated 3:10 pm ET: Ex-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will announce tomorrow that he is running for Congress, First Read confirms with an aide close to Sanford.

Sanford will announce via press release tomorrow; there will be no press conference or public events associated with it, according to an aide.

NBC previously reported that Sanford would attempt a political comeback running for his old first congressional district seat. Sanford would be running to replace Tim Scott, who was appointed to Jim DeMint's Senate seat.

DeMint resigned from Congress to head up The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank and activist group.

National Review has a lengthy Q&A with Sanford on why he's running, including his first shot at explaining his 2009 disappearance and affair with an Argentine TV reporter.

"There’s a larger philosophical question. In life we’re all going to make mistakes, we’re all going to come up short," Sanford said. "The key is, how do you get back up and how do you learn from those mistakes? . . . But I think that the bigger issue is, don’t judge any one person by their best day, don’t judge them by their worst day. Look at the totality, the whole of their life, and make judgments accordingly."

He added, "You’ve got to look under the hood. There’s that sensational headline, to look and say, 'Wow, big ethics charge.' Beyond the headline, what does that mean? You say, 'Hm. There were 37 counts the ethics committee brought, and did you know half of those are for taking a business-class ticket?' You look under the hood and you say, 'Wow.'"

Sanford also touted his record, including that he turned down stimulus funds.

"I was rated No. 1 in Congress by National Taxpayers Union, and No. 1 by Citizens against Government Waste in efforts to limit federal spending, rated by Cato as the most fiscally responsible governor in the United States," he said. "I was the first governor to turn down stimulus funds. I won’t go through all the merit badges, but I could give you dozens of different occasions where I stood very solidly on the side of the taxpayer."

It took several dominoes to fall for Sanford to be lined up to run in this race, something Sanford also acknowledged.

"I’m not saying it was God-ordained or anything like that," Sanford said, "but a series of rather miraculous events have coincided here, that did not escape the attention of the friends who were urging me to look at this."